A committee of practical women supervises the work and endeavors not only to secure temporary positions, but to confer permanent benefits on those who seek their aid. The applicants usually include stenographers, typewriters, copyists, clerks, governesses, matrons, nurses, housekeepers, seamstresses, laundresses, cooks, and housemaids. It is the rule, and not the exception, to find a girl or woman _specially_ fitted for the position she seeks. The majority are not fitted even to do _one_ thing well, and the ignorance and assumption shown are appalling. To discover latent ability, to stimulate the desire to excel, to explain the rights of the employer and employee, and the moral obligations of both, is a part of the privilege of the women who give time and thought to the employment problem. The Boston Women's Educational and Industrial Union has been able to render excellent service by the distribution of circulars cautioning women against advertisements which offer large returns for work done at home. Its list of fraudulent firms, obtained by thorough investigation, has been sent to other associations, and has already proved of inestimable value to many women who would otherwise have been tempted to send money, allured by the attractive advertisements. The list compiled gives the names of one hundred firms which are a "delusion and a snare," and which, on account of some trifling technicality, the law seems unable to touch. To exalt the home and raise the standard of domestic service is another important object--perhaps the most important of all. From the ordinary intelligence office to the employment bureau under the guidance of educated women is a long step for progress. In all humane effort, the more scientific the methods employed the better will be the results. According to Charles Kingsley, "scientific method needs no definition--it is simply the exercise of common sense." HERBERT SPENCER AT SEVENTY-NINE. The portrait of Herbert Spencer, which forms the frontispiece to this number of the Monthly, is from a photograph taken soon after he reached the age of seventy-eight. Though of late years his health has been unusually feeble, this is scarcely reflected in the face, which still retains in a marked degree the expression of intellectual strength that was so characteristic of his prime.